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Talk:The Kingdom of Pendor/@comment-199.229.249.169-20191012053145/@comment-45075715-20200220214613
I came to the same conclusion (at least back in 3.7). I don't find their commoner ranged anywhere near as lethal as EAC or RR (already enough to turn me off to the culture), their infantry seems very mediocre, and cav kind of meh. Talking mostly commoner tree which is the most important to me since if I want top-shelf troops, I like KOs and eventually CKOs. I see lotsa complaints about D'Shar but I actually love D'Shar in comparison. My fav culture tends to be Empire though, then maybe Fierdsvain and Ravenstern. Least favorite for me is Pendor and Sarleon, but at least Sarleon has really nice armored cav in their commoner tree. There might something really nice about Pendor troops but at least whatever is nice about them doesn't at all match my playstyle! I prefer cultures that very arguably have the best units of a certain type in the game, like Ravenstern with archers, Fierdsvain with infantry, Empire with x-bows... and commoner troops that can kill super fast over ones with the best armor if I have to sacrifice one thing for the other. Cav maybe not as important to me -- I can accept mediocre cav in exchange for exceptional infantry or ranged in a culture since I can get awesome cav from KO and my army tends to consist of the smallest ratio of cav compared to foot ranged and inf until really late game when I get OP cav from KO and CKO. I kind of chuckled at this part of the wiki: >> The Pendor Armored Bowman matches the longbowmen of Sarleon ... ... because I consider PAB one of the worst top-tier ranged units in the game (besides the new Barclay Arquebusiers). What good is a bowman in very heavy armor who can barely kill stuff with bow or hold his own in melee? ... not to mention that seeing someone using a longbow in full platemail looks pretty funny (not an issue to me, but looks so funny on the battlefield). At least EAC is super good at killing stuff with the x-bow and not too bad at melee. The wording there makes them both sound sorta good. :-D I'm thinking the design is supposed to favor a jack-of-all-trades and master of none mindset, but I find everything designed this way to be at least the hardest to use if not outright ineffective. It's so much easier to work with things that are exceptional at something even if they're really weak at something else. >> Being "balanced" is another way of saying they are mediocre at everything. I've become sort of allergic to the word "balanced" in game design contexts since it often seems that way and often very boring, like the most timidly-designed things that have no bold design decisions to them to skew their strengths and weaknesses. I like the idea of "balanced" meaning that one thing is super good at something and really bad at another, and another thing is super good at another thing and really bad at another. Then it's like apples vs. oranges. That's "balanced" to me when two things are so different from each other in terms of their strengths and weaknesses that we can no longer compare them so easily and clearly say which is "better" or "worse"... not by leveling their playing field and making them easier to compare. So I would like to see Pendor's troop design skewed a bit, and pick one thing they absolutely excel at above all other cultures... like one idea off the top of my head is that none of the main faction infantry are all that good with shield as far as I can tell. I think the highest shield skill on any top-tier commoner troop that actually has a shield is just 5. Maybe Pendor foot knight can switch to one-handed with a shield skill of 7-10 and even carry two shields to protect the back and super good shields like Board Shield or better. That would make them excellent at something -- the best shielded infantry in the game. Then Sarleon has mostly armor going for it, especially armored cav. Empire's got the deadly x-bows. D'Shar got horse archers and overall cheap and fast cav. Fierdsvain got lethal infantry, Ravenstern deadly archers... Pendor could have their epic shield infantry and shield skill and the most resistant shields of any common top-tier infantry troop in the game... just one idea to make them actually exceptional at something and stand out in their own way. The shield sort of fits the lore well in my opinion as an ancient and noble people. Another idea off the top of my head is that no main faction troop type specializes in blunt weapons. Maybe that could be Pendor's thing, and that'd make them an ideal culture for people who like to amass prisoners.... That might also fit the lore well with maces and such... just something like this... anything to make them clearly better at something. And I'm okay with making them even worse at something else in exchange like maybe they don't even have any ranged units after that (maybe the beliefs of the people frowns upon fighting from afar and sees it as cowardly -- this might also go well with making them undeniably the absolute best with shields since they might still find a technological need to develop the finest defenses against ranged units with their refusal to use ranged weapons themselves)... I don't know, anything to make them stand out and not be so boring and meh -- make them sexy and attractive choice somehow.